Microsoft Provides (Long Awaited) Way to Rename Office 365 URLs for SharePoint Online and OneDrive

For organizations using Office 365 and had to share a URL for a link to a SharePoint Online site, library, or shared OneDrive file, they will have noticed the URL includes the "tenant name" for the organization. So if my tenant name for Office 365 is "companyabc", all of my SharePoint Online URLs would be something like companyabc.sharepoint.com/sites/filexxx

For simple environments where your company email address is companyabc.com and your Office 365 tenant name is companyabc, then this works and looks just fine.

But for organizations that may have gone through an organizational name change, like changing from companyabc and now known as corp-events, where emails were able to be changed from companyabc.com to corp-events.com, Office 365 tenant names have NOT been changeable! Or orgs that created their tenant name based on a legal corporate name not by the name the organization goes by, sometimes the URLs look weird or have been confusing.

NOW, that URL name for SharePoint Online and OneDrive URLs can be changed! But of course there are some gotchas.

Changing the URL Name for SharePoint Online and OneDrive

Microsoft released a technical guide describing the Preview of this option to rename the URLs embedded in SharePoint Online and OneDrive links - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/tenant-rename

Gotchas in Performing this Tenant Name Rename

For a quick list of some of the big things that are gotchas in this URL rename process:

• Preview Only (as of Sept/2021): This rename process is in Preview only, so you need to nominate yourself and then "wait". No guarantees you'll get invited to participate, and no formal response process. Don't get your hopes up this will actually happen for your org any time soon.
• Big Bang Cutover: Currently, the rename process is done as an all or nothing cutover that can take hours or days to complete. Microsoft's preview documentation suggests to "do it over a weekend", but effectively you kick off the process and just wait. The old URLs stop working, the new URLs take effect, but you have no control when it is complete.
• Need for Change Management: If you read between the lines on the above where URLs "change", once a URL is renamed, the old URL doesn't work anymore. That means users that have URL links in emails to files, or have SharePoint sites or libraries bookmarked in their browser, all those URLs won't work anymore. Users will have to be advised ahead of time that their URLs will change and likely will need to be provided support in the process
• Automation Processes and 3rd Party Tools Will Likely Break: If you're using any scripted automation processes or 3rd party tools in SharePoint Online, they will likely stop working after the rename because URLs, library calls, and registered components will all have new names.

When is a Rename a (Potentially) Good Option?

While I've listed 4 biggies on the gotcha list above, the Microsoft doc referenced above covers a whole lot more. There's just a lot of things that never assumed someone would be able to change the URLs in SharePoint Online and OneDrive, so things will break.

BUT, one huge scenario where this rename fits well is for an organization who really wants to change the URL name in their SharePoint Online / OneDrive links AND hasn't really done a whole lot with SharePoint / OneDrive to date. OR organizations that have a lot of old stuff in SharePoint, haven't really done a good job creating standards or curating sites that kind of want to throw everything out and start anew, and with a proper company URL for their content here forward, THAT is a perfect scenario for this tenant URL change option.

Wrap-up

So this ability to rename the URLs in SharePoint Online and OneDrive is GREAT to know that Microsoft is rolling out a process to do it. It might be a few months before this is out of Preview, some of the quirks are worked out, and best practices are developed to ease the pain in the changeover. But just knowing there is a glimmer of light at the end of this tunnel that didn't exist before is really exciting for those who have been wanting this option for years!